2001 News Releases

CALIFORNIA MAN SENTENCED FOR
ABANDONING HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS

Release Date: 10/25/2001Contact Information:

FOR RELEASE: THURSDAY, OCT. 25, 2001

CALIFORNIA MAN SENTENCED FOR ABANDONING HAZARDOUS CHEMICALS

Luke C. Hester 202-564-7818 / hester.luke@epa.gov

Olumbamidele Dada, of Pasadena, Calif., owner of Kamila, Inc., was sentenced on Oct.16 to six months home detention and was ordered to pay $70,055 in restitution for violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by illegally disposing of hazardous waste. Dada had arranged with a shipper in Wilmington, Calif., to transport to Nigeria for resale thousands of containers of highly toxic, corrosive, flammable, retrograde chemicals which had been purchased from the U.S. military. Dada never completed the transportation of the chemicals and they were left at the shipper’s facility where some of their containers began to leak. The shipper was ordered by the U.S. Coast Guard and the Los Angeles County Fire Department to perform a clean-up that cost in excess of $80,000. The case was investigated by EPA’s Criminal Investigation Division, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Los Angeles County Fire Department’s Health Hazardous Materials Division. It was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Los Angeles.